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August 18, 2003
Mister Softee Woes
Maybe my impatience with Mister Softee stems from my lack of ice cream truck exposure as a child.
I didn't always have such a cranky response to the little white truck, however. In fact, I was delighted when I found, shortly after moving to Brooklyn, the Mister Softee truck depot on Carroll Street. How cute those identical little white trucks were, lined up one by one on a slight horizontal tilt. Yes-indeedy, I was originally very excited to see them. But then summer came.
The first few Mister Softee songs played were soothing. Yes, it's summer. Let's all relax and eat ice cream. But as the hot days dragged on, we came to realize that Mister Softee liked to play his Pied Piper song...a lot. Late at night. Sometimes as a duet with another truck, the two theme songs colliding in a not-so-melodic echo throughout the neighborhood.
My seething animosity for Mister Softee came to a head on Thursday night when, at about 1:30 a.m., a lone truck set up shop (complete with Softee Song) on the corner of Butler and Smith Streets and began serving up his iced sweets to the blackout revelers who spilled drunkenly out of Angry Wade's. His song ricocheted directly into my apartment where I lay, hot, cranky, tired, and now kept awake by three notes repeating over, and over, and over again for more an hour.
Maybe, in a weird, slightly yuppified way, the peeps in Babylon, L.I., got it right when they enacted their ice cream truck curfew. I'd settle for the removal of all ice cream truck speakers. A mute truck is better than no truck at all.
Grrr.
Give me Kool Man any day.
Posted by callalillie at August 18, 2003 2:12 PM | Rabid Rants
i used to live on 5th ave at baltic and mr softee would park on the corner and the driver would go into the chinese restaurant every day for a half hour. he'd leave the damn song playing the whole time. i don't know how those guys can stand it. reading the lyrics, i now know the person who wrote the jingle must have been psychotic.
Posted by: Jimmy Legs at August 18, 2003 4:43 PM
I used to live on Adelphi off of Myrtle in Forte Green. One day I witnessed TWO Mister Softee trucks within 100 ft of each other hocking their wares to wide-eyed kiddies with dueling jingles disharmonizing for over 20 minutes.
Yesterday I was passing Carroll Gardens Park and the resident Mister Softee truck was parked on the side of the road. Although the park was filled with kids the truck's song was so distorted and mangled by its poor speakers the kids could only eye it skeptically before completely ignoring it.
Posted by: nonreclusivesean at August 18, 2003 11:42 PM
I've heard that truck near Carroll Park! It's horrible. It makes me feel like I'm in a B horror movie...
Posted by: callalillie at August 19, 2003 10:25 AM
I guess you have to be one of those earnest and intense King Crimson fans to groove off of two asynchronous Mister Softee trucks. The first time I heard two of the buggers out of time with one another, my immediate thought was, "Oooo, 'Frame by Frame!'"
Having said that, I do still intend to write a letter to the company requesting that they retire their jingle and replace it with an all-chimes rendition of Rage Against the Machine's "Bombtrack."
Posted by: Ashley at August 21, 2003 8:10 PM
